HTC plans to make BlinkFeed available to other Android devices soon
It’s not often a manufacturer wants to extend an olive branch to anyone but their own consumers, but HTC is daring to break the mold with their latest move. In a statement to the press, the Taiwanese company acknowledged the popularity of BlinkFeed, and felt compelled to make the launcher available to non-HTC users in the near future:
Following its popularity with HTC users, HTC will now make HTC BlinkFeed available to other Android devices, launching on the Google Play store soon.
Odd move indeed, but perhaps there’s a deeper cause here. For starters, what better way to try and sway people to your brand than to show them what they’re missing out on? BlinkFeed could be the gateway that some consumers need to be interested in the rest of what HTC is offering.
The latest version of BlinkFeed rests on HTC Sense 6.0, which comes pre-installed atop Android 4.4.2 on the all new HTC One M8. It isn’t a huge departure from the norm compared to previous versions of BlinkFeed, though HTC did add a refined user interface, introduced more news and feed sources, and increased performance across the board.
This type of move is definitely encouraged, regardless if it’s a genuine goodwill gesture or the result of a guerilla marketing tactic needed to help restore HTC to former glory. Whatever the case may be, though, it’s already in the Google Play Store for HTC One M8 owners, and we’ll be watching it like a hawk in the weeks and months to come.